Robert Whitman (born 1935 in New York City) is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making.

Due to the unusual ephemeral nature of most of Whitman's oeuvre, relatively little of it is easily accessible to us today. Playback has therefore involved the artist extensively in restoring and reconstructing works. The exhibition and the book are the product of a six-year effort, some of it nearly archaeological, to rehabilitate aged film and outdated equipment into an exhibitable form as the artist intended it. This book comes with a DVD including The American Moon, Flower, Prune Flat, and an interview with the artist as well as commentary on the films.